The Food Timeline

[kleph]

I was searching for a source on the history of a dish today and stumbled on a great site, The Food Timeline.

Reading Escoffier one of the first things you get a sense of is the progression of food. Most of the time we just assume cooking is there. Static. But the fact is food preparation is an organic process that is constantly evolving. Like, for example, music.

That's what this site is about.

Here is how they explain themselves: "Food history is full of fascinating lore and contradictory facts. Historians will tell you it is not possible to express this topic in exact timeline format. They are quite right. Everything we eat is the product of culinary evolution. On the other hand? It is possible to place both foods and recipes on a timeline based on print evidence and historic context."

This website is great because it is a rough organization of this process in a pretty easy to understand format. If you dig food and cooking, its worth your while to explore this great site.

The Food Timeline (http://www.foodtimeline.org/index.html)

[Spades]

timline shmiline - just feed me quick!!!!

[kleph]

Poking around I found it's link to an incredibly detailed article on Australian cuisine (http://www.cambridge.org:80/us/books/kiple/australia.htm) in the Cambridge World History of Food. Amazing stuff.

[Canalien]

chapter i'm reading in a book at the moment is about the evolution food, and specifically the way different foods have been domesticated and farmed... interesting to compare the wild ancestors of common foods to the modern equivalent. for example, the original, wild form of corn was barely an inch long. it's current form is thanks to thousands of years of selective natural breeding of only giant mutant specimens. the original goal wasn't to make corn bigger, but ancient people only picked the big ones (because they were bigger) and only planted seeds from what they grabbed, unintentionally breeding larger and larger forms of corn.
same goes for apples, strawberries and pretty much every other fruit and vegetable we eat these days.

another good example was that wild almonds have a lethal dose of a chemical which synthesizes into cyanide through digestion. the modern, un-toxic almond came essentially by trial and error. there's a single gene mutation which doesn't produce the poison, and human ancestors identified which almond plants didn't kill them and ate from only them, leaving the pure, poisonous variety to die out. very innaresting stuff.

[kleph]

yeah. i have been interested in that myself due to being in peru and it's association with the potato. the tuber originates from here but it has pretty much revolutionized every culture it has been introduced to afterward. this site is great because it leads you to a wonderful source article with all the info like this (http://www.cambridge.org:80/us/books/kiple/potatoes.htm) and then you can refer back to the timeline to cross reference different things you find interesting. say, how and when the potato was introduced to ireland and its effect in the cuisine there.

[Canalien]

*sigh* I wish i could get Russet potatoes here

[kleph]

i wish i could get lemons here.